


the meaninglessness of numbers

by vivial



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Random & Short, Random Encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-04-03 16:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21478585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivial/pseuds/vivial
Summary: Asriel is mesmerised by Marisa's precise behavior.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 77





	the meaninglessness of numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Tom Rosenthal's "The Meaninglessness of Numbers".  
A random idea that sparked after last night's episode.

Every movement of hers is made with the most precise of equations, Asriel has never seen it done before with such efficiency. He has seen experimental theology’s instruments work with less accuracy that Marisa’s fluid movements; the way she smile, careful enough to measure every inch of her lips, as if one centimeter more could destroy her very being. Everything about her is impeccable, there is not a crease in her clothes, not a hair out place; she was the embodiment of pristine. Her eyes were wild though, concealing everything about her that she wanted to hide. _She looks like she’s about to explode_, he thought amused.

He’s seen her multiples times now, mostly from a distance, but sometimes they inevitably had to speak to each other. He had a feeling she didn’t like him very much, which was fine by him since he did not like her very much either, and whenever they spoke, the room would fill with sparks from their casual and mutual distaste. Her latest paper was an atrocity, or at least he thought so, but there were enough scholars around Oxford to validate it; Stelmaria laughed at him though, because she knew he was far more bitter over the fact Marisa’s paper overshadowed his own recent research. He had muttered something that resembled a “Shut up!”.

She’s often at Bodley’s Library, stuck with the same books he needs to consult, her daemon politely seated on the table to aid in her ruse about being absurdly perfect. There is where they meet with frequency, but when alone, they hardly chat; at first he thought their constant stumbling upon each other was a coincidence, until he caught himself (more likely, Stelmaria pointed that out to him) going there on purpose and for no reason. The way she so carefully flipped the pages of the book, as if every angle her body made was carefully calculated. He watched with delight and resentment, as well as impatience. Asriel could be subtle himself, if he wanted to; the problem was that he hardly ever wanted to be subtle.

“You are hateful.” He tells her once, after he demanded to see the book she had; he needed it for his notes, just for five minutes, and he told her so. Marisa smiles; vicious, sweet and sends him on a two-second trip while doing so. Asriel hates how easily caught in her act he is, how stupid and foolish he was for indulging that half-woman, half-vixen vain creature who so easily stole from him the attention of the scholars.

“If you truly wanted the book, you should have arrived earlier.” She whispers, her hands firmly put upon the book; he had thought about snatching the book and running away, and now he ponders if she can read his mind. Suddenly everything about her is like a spell; he begins to think she should spend less time in the north and more time around people, because he cannot fathom the idea that a woman so easily decoded him. Her fingers are slender and claw-like; her well-manicured hand is decorated with her wedding ring, golden and shiny, and with an extra shinier diamond ring. Its demure appearance is as faux as Marisa's soft disposition; Asriel thinks he has never met anyone as hardened as that woman.

“Do you take pleasure in being unpleasant?” He barks and she smiles, but her eyes are twitching and glowing with a malice, as if she had been waiting for that question all her life. Her monkey reaches for Stelmaria, stoic and quiet, and avidly as if she was something new and exciting and terribly easy to harm. Something he and his woman wanted to harm, desperately; to carve their fingers into Asriel's flesh and Stelmaria's, as they often did in the so near future.

“You have no idea how unpleasant I can be and I haven’t even started.”

Asriel watches her in silence, but their daemons are now touching and talking, in whispers, but fiercely; no harm done, no yet at least. He sits across her and everything seems misplaced now. She is back to her notes, but their daemons are still together. He questions her about everything: why did she choose that book instead of the traditional one? Why was she researching that specific topic? Why did she marry such a dull man only to stick to academia?

She has an answer for everything.

It takes him time to realise that while she is ardently opposed to him with every fiber of her being, her daemon is much more agreeable. They make a ritual out of their library discussion, and Stelmaria carves a path of understanding while Asriel battles Marisa for a glimpse of humanity, or fear or desire. He never touches her, he knows that if he does so, he’ll be forever trapped, and she knows that and uses that knowledge to tease him. Her heels often find his legs beneath their table; that is normally the time he chooses to leave, without announcement. He stands up and walk away, fully aware that she has won yet another feud and that he keeps on losing a battle which Marisa will always win because she has found a way to weaponise lust.

She calls him a heretic and that was the lightest insult she had come up until then. Her mockery of his exploring work is distasteful, Asriel fails to understand why he puts up with such an incredibly nasty company, but he is back in the library every time she is there and he sits across her, watching as her fingers point at different words and numbers in the books. Their daemons touch and talk and he watches as she struggles to contain everything while her daemon avidly betray her, by excitedly contradicting every word she says, every movement she makes, to show her desperate interest in Asriel, despite the fact she looked like she wanted him to disappear.

Stelmaria pins him down when Asriel grabs Marisa’s arm in a lone corridor, at last; he pulls her into an empty classroom. The monkey melts under Stelmaria, just as fluid as the woman herself, but as a statement Asriel kisses her with disdain and distaste, as if he resents ever setting his eyes on her, which would eventually be true. A spark runs through his body, as he acknowledges she tastes exactly like he thought she would and the she is as soft as he imagined she would be and he feels pathetic, a manipulated fool, slave to his own desires. In his arms, though, she no longer measures her angles and numbers, the formula which she uses to fit in, a formula that he crashes with ease.

_Fuck_, he thinks, once he realises he has done exactly what she wanted him to do. _There is no going back now_, he understands.

He is already lost.


End file.
